


What kind of man is he?

by peristeronic



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M, Orsino's self-indulgence, Pre-Het, also a little bit of his misogyny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7624849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peristeronic/pseuds/peristeronic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orsino ponders his new page, Cesario, and how his relationship with Cesario is different from the other relationships in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What kind of man is he?

The boy was peculiar. He was clever, and more than that! Shrewd, sharp, and sententious. He was quick with a jest and eloquent in his speech, and Orsino felt that _finally,_ here was a companion who could keep up with him. Cesario’s words could make a mighty kingdom fall, Orsino was sure, if like David he had a king for his audience. (As things stood, Cesario had the duke of Illyria wrapped around his finger.)

He’d never before known someone so well worth listening to. Usually he preferred the sound of his own voice to anyone else’s. When he heard someone speak, he was planning what he would say next. Listening only to hear something he could seize on and use to construct his next _bon mot._

_Will I hunt the hart? Why, so I do, the noblest that I have..._

But when the boy spoke, it was worth listening! The boy was a gifted poet and he spoke with wisdom beyond his years. In particular he had an uncanny aptitude for discovering just the right words in which to express Orsino’s own heartache. How could Cesario find better words than Orsino himself could with which to pin down the mercurial moods of Orsino’s heart, the subtleties of ever-shifting color?

No one else followed where Orsino was going, and certainly no one else leapt ahead and arrived there first. When Orsino was overflowing with music and he let it cascade out of him, Curio looked at him with the bewilderment of an unlearned man, one who had no understanding of poetry. Valentine looked at him with an indulgent eye that bordered on dismissive, as if he felt this was one of the privileges of an old retainer. It rankled when Valentine was at his most indulgent, looking on Orsino as if he were a mere child. And Olivia? Well, perhaps a woman could not be expected to understand the depths of a man’s soul. She just didn’t get it at all. If she _had_ understood him, how could she have denied him? Yet she had barred her door; she outright _refused_ to understand him. She refused to listen to the speeches he so carefully crafted and entrusted to his messengers, like entrusting choice pieces of his heart which his messengers then carried to her door on a silver platter. 

Cesario, on the other hand, was a willing and eager audience. It wasn’t even that he wished to appear attentive in order to curry favor with the duke; Orsino was no fool—made foolish by Cupid’s dart though he may be—and he knew what _that_ looked like in a servant or a courtier. When he spoke, Cesario watched him and he had the feeling that Cesario truly did see him. There was a light in his eye, a glimmer that said that he was thoughtfully weighing Orsino’s words, and Orsino could see that glimmer in Cesario’s eyes even in those appalling moments when the easy flow of his own tongue was dammed up and he began to flounder, reaching out with his hands for the next word. Even then, his words carried weight with Cesario. And in the midst of that seamless flow of words that Orsino prided himself on, Cesario never became lost and lulled in the rhythm. His eyes didn’t glaze over as his mind wandered through a garden of bright images. He never rolled his eyes and lost interest halfway through Orsino’s explanation of why the tune Feste had just sung cut to the quick.

(And since Cesario was his most truly appreciative audience, in the past weeks Orsino had found himself striving to impress Cesario and to please him. When he showed Cesario a piece of poetry he’d written, he made sure it was his best and full of his highest flourishes. He found himself pausing more now, weighing the words he spoke to Cesario almost with the same care that he used in crafting his love-notes for Olivia.)

It was by giving his ear to the outpouring of Orsino’s heart, clearly, that Cesario had come to comprehend his master’s spirit and his mind. That was the trick that allowed Cesario to perceive the depths of Orsino’s melancholy and to express it. Orsino couldn’t remember anyone else ever comprehending him so wholly. It felt like being given a precious gift, to know that Cesario understood.

Yet Cesario’s own heart was a mystery. When he had first come into Orsino’s service, he was sometimes shy to the point of muteness, but Orsino had managed to bully him into losing some of his modesty. He would now give his opinion on Petrarch and Ariosto and Orsino’s own poetry. He and Orsino engaged freely in voluble conversation about poetry and philosophy, Cesario expounding on his own subtle interpretations, expressing his admiration for his own favorites. Now he was willing to offer up jests and quips of his own volition, one corner of his lip quirking up. But there were some subjects that would make him careful again, and he was absolutely silent on anything touching on his past or his heart.

His conversation offered tantalizing glimpses that Orsino couldn’t understand. _I am all the daughters of my father’s house and all the brothers too..._ In three months, Cesario never gave one straight answer about his family. He said he was a gentleman, and Orsino believed him, but he wouldn’t give his father’s name. He admitted freely enough that his father had died when he was only thirteen, but come to think of it, Orsino wasn’t even sure how old the boy was _now_. Cesario spoke of a brother in passing, but never named him. Orsino thought maybe the brother was dead. Recollections seemed to rise up in Cesario painfully: they slipped out involuntarily, all too easily, and then Cesario would start distractedly and say something to cover his mistake up, hurrying on to the next subject. This happened on several occasions, whereas Cesario only mentioned his sister the once. Maybe the brother _was_ dead. Maybe very recently dead?

_But died thy sister of her love, my boy?_ He had asked the question and he had received only a riddle for an answer.

Maybe if he could undercover the mysteries that Cesario hid, he could unravel the secret of how he had become so captivated by Cesario so quickly. Why was it that he found the boy’s company preferable to any other’s? How did it happen that, in Cesario’s presence or only puzzling over his tight-lipped answers in private, he could forget himself, forget his heart’s pain, forget Olivia? This was Cesario’s ultimate mystery, his most cunning ability. The answer would come, Orsino feared, only in its own good time.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by my ever-present need to shout from the rooftops how important it is that Orsino actually listens to Cesario in Act 2, scene 4, and how that's a turning point in his character arc and he's never actually listened to anyone before and that shows how much he's in love with Cesario. Some of that actually came out in what I wrote. But I would like to thank my good friend Charlie for saying something brilliant to me: that no one listens to Orsino, either. 
> 
> Please forgive me for the fact that this is nothing but an interior monologue of sorts. Hopefully it conveys some of Orsino's ridiculousness without being too annoying about it.


End file.
